A Process of Waiting

The actor Alfred Molina, currently appearing as the Abstract Expressionist painter Mark Rothko in RED, on acting, painting, and the creative process:

"The mechanics of what we do is really rather dull.  The notion that there is some kind of process, some kind of magical alchemical formula is nonsense.  I don't know my 'process.'  But I can tell you what I do.  The day-to-day grind of getting up and learning your lines and coming into work and going over the same bits is work.  But the journey toward creativity is always mundane.  Bloody hell.  It's the same for any creative endeavor.  It's not just about painting or the fine arts.  It's about everything we do.  It's a process of waiting."

(click to enlarge)

Fingers Crossed

for Curiosity landing on Mars tonight:

A Novel's Polestar

"A long-exposure photograph of the night sky will show you something that you never see, however often you look at the stars: thousands of perfect curves, concentrically arranged around an invisible pinhead. Everything is wheeling slowly about a single point. 

"A good book or a great adventure, fictional or real, often does the same.  There is a fulcrum: a still, quiet centre to the tale."

Matthew Parris

Not Ready Yet?

To those friends and readers who've asked why my novel is still unfinished, a poem:


The Gesture


To step forward to the canvas then back from it
Without making a mark, and to do this
Again and again as the paint on the brush
Thickens, as my eye, my hand, my heart
Refuse to repeat the gesture once made freely
With a synthesis of joy.  What Auerbach called
The safety net of manner could be mine
If I admitted it, to break my fall and rest there
Saved by repetition.  What you might say
Is 'Nobody paints like him, amazingly prolific
For his age, such energy, such vision', easy words
Like that, but exactly so, I should indeed
Be nobody with nothing left to show but a blank
And vacuous deception.  No, I'm not ready yet.
--John Mole

Do It Now

"Death is a beautiful woman, always by my side.  She'll kiss me one day, I know.  She's a companion who reminds me not to postpone anything -- 'Do it now, do it now, do it now.' Her voice is not threatening, just constant. It tells me what matters is not how long I live, but how I live."
--Paulo Coelho

The Coward's Fear of Death

"The coward's fear of death stems in large part form his incapacity to love anything but his own body.  The inability to participate in others' lives stands in the way of his developing any inner resources sufficient to overcome the terror of death."
--J. Glenn Gary, The Warriors